Global Foreigner Communication Platform
Topic
A first-30-days checklist: arrival, SIM card, bank account, accommodation, registration and the offices you must visit in order.
Arriving in Nepal is easy. Everything that follows the arrival depends on paperwork, and each office wants a document that another office issues first - which is why newcomers lose weeks repeating journeys rather than hitting any real obstacle. The sequence below is the one that works. Follow it in order and the first month is straightforward.
If you want the day-by-day version, the 30-day arrival checklist goes deeper. This page is the map.
| Step | Depends on | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enter on the right visa | Nothing |
| 2 | Get a local SIM | Passport and visa |
| 3 | Find somewhere to live | SIM, for landlords to reach you |
| 4 | Open a bank account | Passport, visa, address, phone number |
| 5 | Register locally where required | Address and landlord cooperation |
| 6 | Convert to the right long-term visa | Employer, institution or spouse documents |
The two most common ordering mistakes are trying to open a bank account before you have a Nepali phone number, and trying to arrange a long-term visa before the underlying relationship - a job, a course, a marriage - is documented.
Bring more documents than you think you need, in both original and photocopy, plus a stack of passport photographs. Nepali offices run on paper, and the photocopy shop outside each one exists because of it.
The things worth carrying: your passport with ample validity remaining, degree and professional certificates if you may work or study, your marriage certificate if relevant, a police clearance from your home country, and anything medical you take regularly with its prescription. Getting a document legalised from abroad after you have arrived is slow and expensive.
Most nationalities can obtain a tourist visa on arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport and at land borders, in 15, 30 or 90-day durations. A small number of nationalities must arrange a visa before travelling, and Indian citizens do not require one at all.
A tourist visa is the right way to arrive and the wrong way to stay. It caps your total presence per visa year, it does not permit work, and converting it later requires the underlying paperwork to exist. Visa and immigration covers the rules; residence covers what you move onto for a longer stay.
Get a SIM in the first day or two. It takes about fifteen minutes with your passport and visa, and almost everything downstream - bank verification codes, landlords, ride apps, delivery - assumes a Nepali number.
SIM and internet covers the document requirements and which network to pick for where you will actually be.
Short-term accommodation first, permanent later. Committing to a lease before you understand the city's geography is the most expensive avoidable mistake available, because a flat forty minutes from your work in valley traffic is a different life from one fifteen minutes away.
Spend two weeks somewhere flexible, make the commute you will actually make, then sign. Housing covers what landlords ask of non-citizens, and living and housing covers how the rental market works generally.
A Nepali bank account makes everything cheaper and simpler, and it requires the previous steps: passport, valid visa, local address, local phone number, and usually documentation of why you are in the country.
Banking and finance sets out the requirements, and the step-by-step account guide walks through it.
Depending on where you live and your visa category, there may be local registration to complete - your ward office, and in some circumstances a report to the local authorities. Your landlord usually knows the local requirement better than any website; ask them when you sign.
Legal and government covers which offices handle what for non-citizens.
Set expectations correctly and the first month is calm rather than frantic:
Start the slow things on day one even if the fast things feel more urgent.
Read visa and immigration before anything else - it determines what the rest of your year looks like. For the country itself rather than the paperwork, life in Nepal covers the calendar, the weekend and the costs you are about to meet.
A compressed sequence, since this is the page people arrive on.
Week one: somewhere temporary to stay, a local SIM, cash, and a look at two or three neighbourhoods on foot. Do not sign a lease.
Week two: open the bank account if your status allows it, register with your embassy if it offers that, find the nearest clinic and hospital with an emergency department, and save the emergency numbers.
Week three: decide the neighbourhood, view properly, and check the water, power and drainage before agreeing anything.
Week four: sign, move, set up internet, and start whatever visa or permit process your status requires, because that one has the longest tail.
Dhruvin Pandya
Most arrival guides list what you need. This one lists the order. Do these steps out of sequence and you will be sent back to an office you already visited.
